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5.2 is live

I can’t wait to dive into 5.2 and have a look around. New raids, zones, quests, pets, you name it.. this is a patch with a serious amount of content. The full list of official notes can be found here.

After reading though the notes, which are pretty extensive, there are a few things that I’m very interested and pleased by.

Pet Battles

Love them or hate them. I personally fall into the love them category mainly because I am a pet collector and the idea that there are hundreds of free pets just waiting for me to claim them is my little slice of heaven.

While heaps of new pets and abilities have been added or tweaked, this is the change I’m most excited about

Battle Pet Bandages now stack to 25 and are Bind to Account

No longer the days of waiting in frustration because my current toon is staring a team of sadly damaged pets with a cooldown on the heal pet ability fully knowing that on another toon is a stack of pet bandages just going to to waste. Finally I can share my bandages out.

This is just funny:

Nether Roach is now a real roach and can now survive the apocalypse.

I want to go collect one now, just to see how survivable it really is.

Raiding

On Normal and Heroic mode, zone-wide auras have been activated in Mogu’shan Vaults, Heart of Fear, and Terrace of Endless Spring, reducing the health and damage of all enemies therein by 10%. A NPC near the entrance within each zone explains this, and offers to deactivate the buff for the benefit of brave/foolhardy adventurers.

While it would have be great to have cleared all the content pre-nerf, my raid team ended up being 6/6 MV and 2/6 Hof with many close calls on Garalon. This change should help us to finally clear the content.

Farming

Players that have grown attached to working the land at Sunsong Ranch can now acquire the farm from Farmer Yoon via a quest. The farmhouse becomes a rest point like an Inn, where the player can bind and instantly log out. Work orders will pour into the farm from factions across Pandaria, and completing a work order will earn a reputation boost with the issuing faction.

I love my farm, it’s the first reputation I have to exalted on all my toons. There is something in the act of planting my own plants each day that really amuses me. Not to mention it’s the fastest way to get motes of harmony and golden lotus. To be able to own it myself sounds very fun, I can’t wait to see how this works out.

Even better now is this change:

Wild Crops will now occur less often.

I’m sure anyone who does regularly farm has come across the fact that you can plant 16 plots and often have 16 plants grow up with issues. If you’re anywhere near my farm when I’m planting, you’d be sure to see me cry “why can’t I have just one plant that isn’t infested, parched, smothered, strangled or attractive to the local wildlife?” Well hopefully now I can.

And finally one word of advice from a healer:

New World Boss System

All world bosses (Sha of Anger, Galleon, Nalak the Storm Lord, and Oondasta) are now Tap to Faction. This new system offers every eligible player of the same faction that engages a boss the chance to earn loot. Under the new system, players will only be able to earn loot from each world boss once per week.

I take this to mean you dont have to be in a raid group anymore to be able to attack the boss. From a healers perspective, hopefully people will still group up into raid groups, it will make healing significantly easier. Remember that if you are adventuring and come across this situation – join a group that has a healer in it if you can, you’re much more likely to be healed.